Talk:APP

Chinese

@Wyang: I think this is different from other cases. It's sometimes not read as the English word, but read as an acronym. [1] [2] [3] — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:08, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

It's just general non-native-speaker bastardisation of common English neologisms, happens routinely worldwide. It should be included under English with a non-native label. Wyang (talk) 23:11, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

See also KTV. It works fine under the English L2. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:36, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

@Wyang, Atitarev: Should we include this info under APP or app? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:16, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: I would on APP. We might need a policy on Roman abbreviations. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:08, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I would on APP too. Wyang (talk) 23:33, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

@Justinrleung, Wyang: A policy item might sound along the lines - One may encounter various abbreviations in Chinese texts. They are not considered Chinese and they are not to be included under Chinese L2 header, unless they are Chinese inventions, e.g. 三K黨／三K党 (Sān-kèi-dǎng). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:45, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Is not KTV a Chinese invention? (not trying to be an ass, just playing devil's advocate) —Suzukaze-c◆◆ 03:00, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I didn't see this discussion until now, but the term isn't English—the English term from which it was borrowed is both written and pronounced completely differently. There are other Chinese terms written with Roman letters, such as 卡拉OK (and the other examples mentioned above). If anyone doubts the word's existence, it can of course be taken to RFV. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:24, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

RFV discussion: January–February 2019

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

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APP

Supposedly an English alternative form of app. I've never seen this used as an English word. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:55, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

It says "nonstandard, common in China". Could this just be the fact (if it's a fact...) that Chinese contexts may favour capital letters when using the alien Latin script? Equinox ◑ 00:59, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

To be clear, this is an RFV of the supposed English term "APP" (used in English texts), not the widely used word in Chinese. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:03, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Cited. Wyang (talk) 22:18, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 22:49, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

RFV discussion: December 2018–January 2019

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

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APP

Non-native Chinese script, needs to be cited. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I've added four quotations, with more available on Google Books. When searching, I noticed that the form App seems to be more common, so maybe that should be the main entry with APP as an alternative form. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:25, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Providing examples of "APP" used in Chinese texts does not address the issue raised by Wyang, who deleted the Chinese section of the entry for APP. In giving his reasons for deleting, he asserted that when "APP" is used in a Chinese context, it's a case of English code mixing. Without a doubt, as a linguistically-sophisticated native speaker of Mandarin, he would have been very familiar with the sort of usage in these examples. Richwarm88 (talk) 06:00, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The word is used by native Chinese speakers in running Chinese text. The "code mixing" argument is implausible for multiple reasons – the word is used by Chinese speakers who don't speak English, it's written differently from the English word it's borrowed from, its pronunciation bears no resemblance to that of the English word it's borrowed from, and so on. I'm guessing Wyang's opposition to the word has to do with the fact that it's written with Roman letters, but it's not the only Chinese word like that—many others can be found in Category:Chinese lemmas, including KTV, K歌, AA, T恤, SB, man, MB, and YY. At least one has passed RFV before: see Talk:man. —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The word is used by native Chinese speakers in running Chinese text.

That's how code mixing works. Do you know much about code mixing?

it's written differently from the English word it's borrowed from,

It can be superficially different (APP or App), or identical (app) as in "了解如何发布您的app，..."

its pronunciation bears no resemblance to that of the English word it's borrowed from, and so on.

It's sometimes pronounced the same way as English, as in this video clip [4] and often it's spelled out letter by letter. Either way, I would suggest it's the same word.

I'm guessing Wyang's opposition to the word has to do with the fact that it's written with Roman letters, [like other Chinese words such as ] KTV, K歌, AA, T恤, SB, man, MB, and YY.

You would be guessing wrong. Wyang is the person who created the Wiktionary entry for K歌, and he was involved in writing the entries for some of the other terms you mentioned, such as "SB".

If you imagine that Wyang is confusing code switching with the use of Chinese words like K歌 and SB that contain Roman letters, then I really don't think you have much appreciation of the wealth of knowledge he brought to Wiktionary. Richwarm88 (talk) 10:36, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Even if it is an inadmissible case of code switching, the way of dealing with that is by nominating it at RFD, not by removing the Chinese entry in its entirety. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:10, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I certainly don't mean to insult Wyang or to detract from their impressive contributions to Wiktionary; if any of my comments were interpreted that way I apologize. However, I disagree with them on the issue of the word APP, and I think deleting the entry would be an unfortunate loss for our readers. In any case, if anyone has an argument that the citations I added are inadequate in some way, I'm open to hearing it. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:29, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Wyang is not the only one who is frustrated about additions of terms written in Latin to languages, which don't use them. Some terms have already been verified and accepted but they are still not used in any printed dictionary outside Wiktionary, except maybe 卡拉OK (kǎlā'ōukèi). It feels like an original research. Remarkably, the terms in mixed or Roman scripts are either slang, abbreviations, technical jargon or brand name. What we need, in my opinion, is a language-specific CFI, regulating, what requirements should such terms meet and define clearly what code-switching is, what defines a word in Chinese with no word boundaries. These CFI are required not just for Chinese, so we don't have to prove, e.g. that "management" is not a Greek word but μάνατζμεντ (mánatzment) is. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

• See Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2018/December#Wiktionary lemmas written in a nonnative script for a recent discussion regarding code-switching that is not limited to Chinese entries. Personally, I think that iPhone#Chinese is a clear example of code-switching, because the pronunciation of iPhone#Chinese has not been adapted to conform with Standard Chinese phonology.
• However, in the case of APP#Chinese, I think that this entry is valid and relevant to the region of mainland China, in written form as APP and in spoken form as ēi-pī-pī. I've seen/heard this word being used in 《中餐厅》 (Chinese Restaurant - Season 2, 2018) as well as 《幻乐之城》 (Phantacity). However, both of these are recent television shows from mid-2018 and more evidence is needed to fulfill Wiktionary:CFI.
• As for the quotations provided in APP#Chinese, this may be a case of code-switching, similar to how iPhone#Chinese is used in Chinese publications that are related to the iPhone. Furthermore, the quotations are mostly sourced using printed publications from Taiwan and this does not demonstrate how the word may be pronounced in that region.
• By the way, I have not heard of the term ēi-pī-pī being used in the region of Singapore/Malaysia. The terms 手機應用程序／手机应用程序 or 手機應用程式／手机应用程式 are used more often in media broadcasts from that region. 手機APP／手机APP may also be used, but it is pronounced similar to English app.

這個APP很好玩。 [MSC, trad.]
这个APP很好玩。 [MSC, simp.]

Zhègè /æp/ hén hǎowán. [Pinyin]

(Singapore, Malaysia) This app is very fun.

借我玩那個APP。 [MSC, trad.]
借我玩那个APP。 [MSC, simp.]

Jiè wǒ wán nàgè /æp/. [Pinyin]

(Singapore, Malaysia) Lend me [your phone so I can] play that app.

I think these two examples can be considered as code-switching. KevinUp (talk) 16:26, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

For anyone who doesn't remember, btw, let me point out that Anatoli isn't making up a hypothetical, someone really entered management and marketing as Greek words: Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2017/September#Modern_Greek_terms_spelt_with_Latin_characters! And this has been an issue in Chinese for some time, with e.g. Talk:Thames河 in 2011: I was initially inclined to keep that one, but was won over by Eirikr's argument that it's not used as Chinese, but is code-switching, which seems obvious to me now (one can also spot e.g. "Волга河", "Volga河" and even "Wolga河" on Google). In English, Москва is citeable (Citations:Москва) but was deleted (Talk:Москва!), Citations:ἄρχων is citeable, etc.
This entry could be different because it's written and pronounced differently, unlike (apparently) iPhone, but how often are Latin-script words fond in Chinese capitalized? If it's often, then capitalization isn't much of an argument, though if KevinUp has heard it used in Chinese TV (which may be durably archived), that would be evidence in favour of it, unless there's a Chinese-script form that that could be taken to be. I don't know; for now I'm going to abstain on whether this should be kept or not, but wanted to provide those links. - -sche (discuss) 17:47, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I hear this word frequently here in Shenzhen, though of course those conversations aren't durably archived.

I admit that there is a line that has to be drawn somewhere between borrowings and foreign words being used in the middle of a sentence. For English we usually use italics to distinguish these, but for Chinese that's not an option. This broader issue is tricky to solve and I don't have a good proposal. But the term APP is widely used, including by people who don't speak English, and its spelling and pronunciation differ from the English word (the pronunciation differs significantly). Among people I talk to here in China, it seems to be the most common word for "app" by far. I think it clearly falls on the "borrowing" side of the line. (I'm arguing partly based on personal experience, which doesn't carry much weight here on Wiktionary, but since we have citations that haven't been seriously challenged, we're down to what DCDuring sometimes describes as "gum-flapping".) —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree that APP#Chinese (pronounced ēi-pī-pī) seems to be the most common word for "app" used in mainland China, but most of our quotations are currently from Taiwan. Does anyone know whether the word is also pronounced ēi-pī-pī in Taiwan? I think that the quotations are fine, but in printed form no pronunciation data is available, and in future someone might create entries such as Swift#Chinese based on the same format, which isn't a good thing.

Meanwhile I found that the formal term used in mainland China seems to be 移動應用程序／移动应用程序 while other regions may prefer terms such as 流動應用程式／流动应用程式 (Hong Kong), 手機應用程式／手机应用程式 (Taiwan), 手機應用程序／手机应用程序 (Singapore/Malaysia).

As for the capitalization of Latin-script words in Chinese, this seems to be the convention used, as found in pages 1750-1755 of 《现代汉语词典》 (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian), 6th Edition. [5], which is an appendix for lemmas that begin with the Latin script. (西文字母开头的词语). This has expanded from a modest 39 entries in the 3rd edition (1996) to a whopping 239 entries in the 6th edition (2012). There are more in the 7th edition (2016) but I haven't checked yet. KevinUp (talk) 03:51, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

In Taiwan, it's probably more commonly pronounced as an approximation to English, something like [ɛp(ə) ~ æp(ə)] ([6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]), but some people do pronounce it letter-by-letter ([13] [14] [15]). In Hong Kong, people usually say "app" as a full word (ep1) ([16] [17] [18] [19]), but I've heard some people say "apps" (eps1 or ep1 si2), even for one app ([20]). (This one has both.) — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 05:53, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

The information about usage in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore is interesting. My experience is almost entirely limited to mainland China. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:45, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

I have no opinion for this issue for now. I just want to say that, I think, in China Mainland, the spell-out-letter-by-letter pronunciation and full capitalization written form is not confined to this word APP, based on my personal experience. It's common to hear .doc as diǎnr Dì-Ōu-Sēi, JPEG as Zhèi-Pì-Yì-Zh-yì(/ʈ͡ʂî/)~-Jì, GIF as Zh-yì(/ʈ͡ʂî/)-Aì-Aífu ~ Jì-, ugg as Yōu-Zh-yì(/ʈ͡ʂî/)-Zh-yì~-Jì-Jì. Dokurrat (talk) 01:20, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

 Like Dokurrat, I currently have no solid opinion on this issue. Here's a closer look at the problem from the perspective of the Mainland dictionaries: KTV 现代汉语词典7 p1764 & 现代汉语规范词典3 p1802;  K歌 现代汉语词典7 p1764, not present in 现代汉语规范词典3 on p1802; AA not present in 现代汉语词典7 or 现代汉语规范词典3 (but there is an 'AA制' in 现代汉语词典7 on p1761 & 现代汉语规范词典3 on p1800); T恤 not present in 现代汉语词典7 (but there is a 'T恤衫' in 现代汉语词典7 on p1765 & 现代汉语规范词典3 on p1803); SB not present in 现代汉语词典7 or 现代汉语规范词典3; man not present in 现代汉语词典7 or 现代汉语规范词典3; MB not present in 现代汉语词典7 or 现代汉语规范词典3; YY not present in 现代汉语词典7 or 现代汉语规范词典3. APP not present in 现代汉语词典7 or 现代汉语规范词典3. @KevinUp the entry for Wi-Fi includes lowercase letters- see 现代汉语词典7 p1766 (entry not present in 现代汉语规范词典3) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:35, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

I have just added a Chinese entry for Wi-Fi. The basis for my edit was the inclusion of this term in 现代汉语词典第7版 on page 1766- "【Wi-Fi】" --Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:47, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: Regarding Wi-Fi#Chinese, I don't think this entry should be created because (1) Its meaning is identical to English (2) The entry is listed in the appendix of 现代汉语词典 for the benefit of Chinese readers (e.g. the older generation who know no languages other than Mandarin or some other Chinese dialect) who might encounter this term in their daily lives, rather than international readers. After all, it is a monolingual dictionary meant for native speakers. (3) Most entries in Category:Chinese terms written in foreign scripts such as short#Chinese have definitions that are somewhat different from its original meaning in English, and we should probably use this as the main criteria for the creation of such entries. KevinUp (talk) 16:34, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

@KevinUp I removed the entry. I still believe that Wi-Fi is a Chinese language term. I don't accept the idea that only words which use Chinese characters are Chinese words. To me, the word Wi-Fi is as Chinese as pizza is American- albeit, pizza came from Italy. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:55, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

User:Wyang is continuing to remove the entry without having participated in this discussion, so I'll reiterate a few of the points I made above—the term "APP" with this capitalization is not used in English (at least not in my experience), and the English word "app" isn't pronounced anything like the Chinese word "APP". Moreover, "APP" is the most common Chinese word for "app" (at least in mainland China), and most importantly, the entry has four citations that have not been seriously challenged. I think it's clear that the term meets CFI. As a side note, deleting the entry would be a significant loss to our readers, because of the pronunciation information and because it is the most common Chinese word for "app". —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:15, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

I support Granger's position, i.e. that the Chinese entry should be restored, as per arguments and evidence supplied by Granger. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:35, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Do you speak Chinese? Why do you feel entitled to voice your uninformed opinion? Wyang (talk) 11:47, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I have read the arguments and looked at the evidence in APP entry, the attesting quotations. I also read multiple code switching discussions in the English Wiktionary over the years. I believe my position is reasonably informed. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:51, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I wish learning a language was that easy! Wyang (talk) 11:52, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

That comment makes no sense. I know no Chinese. I see quotations that use APP, capitalized, in between Chinese characters. The APP is capitalized. Multiple people tell me there is a Chinese-specific pronunciation. The disagreement is about treatment approach, not about anything that requires knowledge of Chinese. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:59, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

If you speak no Chinese, then why do you think you are qualified to teach native speakers of Chinese what is their language and what is not? Wyang (talk) 12:04, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Above, Granger plays the ball, not the man. I can be convinced by arguments and evidence, not by attempts to disqualify people from discussion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:07, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Have an idiom for you here: 自知之明 (zìzhīzhīmíng). Wyang (talk) 12:14, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussion closed. Wrong platform ― entry was English, not Chinese. The English word was already listed on Wiktionary:Requests for verification/English#APP and has been cited. Wyang (talk) 22:56, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Why can't it be both English and Chinese? The distinction between /ˌeɪˌpiːˈpiː/ and /ˀeɪ̯⁵⁵ pʰi⁵⁵ pʰi⁵⁵/ is pretty clear to me. --Dine2016 (talk) 11:27, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

It can be any tone in Standard Chinese, and the most common are in the patterns of level-level-level, level-fall-fall, level-level-fall. Mostly the syllables do not fit any of the four tonal categories, i.e. usually mid level instead of high level, high falling instead of high-low falling, etc.: /ei˧ pʰi˧ pʰi˧/, /ei˧ pʰi˥ pʰi˥/, /ei˧ pʰi˧ pʰi˥/, /ei˧ pʰi˥ pʰi˥˧/, /ei˥ pʰi˥ pʰi˥˧/, /ei˥ pʰi˥˧ pʰi˥˧/, ... hardly ever is it pronounced in the four tones of Standard Chinese. This just shows it is far from being naturalised as a Chinese word phonetically. Any similar-length English word can be mixed like this and pronounced differently to how it is in English, e.g. SIM, gif, doc, jpeg, etc, ppt, Uber, ... it doesn't make them Chinese. Wyang (talk) 11:47, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

This discussion was opened for APP#Chinese entry, and therefore belongs to Wiktionary:Requests for verification/Non-English. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:41, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

On a related note, there is now APP#English that has English sentences given as attesting quotes. Arguably, English APP is a borrowing from Chinese. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:51, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Closed. Wrong language: the word is in English not Chinese. The English word is already dealt with elsewhere and has been cited. And no, the English is not "a borrowing from Chinese"; it is simply non-native bastardisation of English. Wyang (talk) 13:00, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Closing a discussion for allegedly procedural reasons when whether this should be documented as Chinese is the subject of the controversy is most inappropriate. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:08, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

So is you voicing your uninformed opinion on a topic that you know nothing about. Wyang (talk) 13:10, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

In the above paragraph, I am voicing a procedural position. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:11, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

A "procedural" position that "arguably, English APP is a borrowing from Chinese". Wyang (talk) 13:13, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Let me make a non-procedural note. banjo is considered to be a Czech word, by me and at least one Czech dictionary. It has the same typographic form as in the language from which it was borrowed. There is also the alternative form benžo, which has the outwardly Czech appearance. In borrowing banjo, Czech did not change the meaning. I believe that borrowings within a script are not necessarily fundamentally different from borrowings between scripts. If someone proposed banjo for deletion as mere code switching, I would oppose. Another example is Czech design, which is left unmodified in Czech, but is adapted in Slovak as dizajn. These unmodified forms stand out as oddballs, crying "I am foreign" more than some other forms. But as foreign as they may appear, they are adopted as Czech into Czech speech and writing. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

• This is RFV and not RFD, so the entry is considered to pass if cites that meet CFI are added, which has occurred. Given the debate, however, I think it would be useful to record the positions expressed by various kinds of speakers (Note: I will count heritage as native for these purposes.) In this discussion, one native speaker (Wyang) and two non-native speakers (Atitarev, Richwarm88) support deletion of the Chinese entry. One native spesker (KevinUp), one non-native speaker (Mx. Granger), and one non-speaker (Dan Polansky) support keeping the Chinese entry. Two native speakers (Dokurrat, Geographyinitiative) and one non-speaker (-sche) abstain or have no opinion. I'd like to encourage @Justinrleung, Dine2016 to express a position, as they are native speakers and have contributed to the discussion without clearly opining. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:01, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I have no opinion. For me it's fully nativized /ˀeɪ̯⁵⁵ pʰi⁵⁵ pʰi⁵⁵/ and a special layer of Chinese vocabulary (from a practical rather than linguistic viewpoint), but for one of my friends it's /æp/ and remains English. --Dine2016 (talk) 17:10, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

The pronunciation [ˀeɪ̯⁵⁵ pʰi⁵⁵ pʰi⁵⁵] is very rare; the vast majority of people use the non-phonemic mid-level (33) or mid-high-level (44) tone instead of high-level (55) when they pronounce APP letter by letter. A lot of other tones also arise, which are all non-phonemic in Standard Chinese. There is no single most common tone pattern or way to pronounce this English word:

[21]: /ei˧ pʰi˦ pʰi˦/, then /æpʰ/, then /ei˧ pʰi˧ pʰi˧/

[22]: /ei˧ pʰi˧ pʰi˧/

[23]: /æ˧ pʰi˧ pʰi˧/

[24]: /æpʰ/ ~ /ei˧ pʰi˥ pʰi˥/

[25]: /ei˦ pʰi˥˧ pʰi˥˧/

[26] (CCTV春晚): /ei˥ pʰi˥ pʰi˥˨/

[27]: /ei˥ pʰi˥˦ pʰi˥˨/

[28]: /ei˦ pʰi˦ pʰi˥˦/

[29]: /ei˧ pʰi˦ pʰi˥˧/

[30]: /ei˧ pʰi˦ pʰi˦/

[31]: /æ˧ pʰæ˧ pʰæ˧/ ~ /æi˧ pʰæi˧ pʰæi˧/

[32]: /apʰ/

[33]: /æpʰ/ ~ /æpʰu/

[34] (CCTV): /æ˥˩ pʰu˩/

[35]: /æpʰ/ ~ /apʰ/

Wyang (talk) 23:05, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I assess that if the pronunciation varies it shows that the word has not been nativized: For is a word nativized, it is handed over from the mouth of one speaker to the other and hence settles on one (ideally) pronunciation, amirite? These transcriptions given indicate to me that it is a word that constantly encroaches from abroad, like the door is never closed. One wouldn’t hear this word either if one were oriented to the inland only. But this is of course phonocentrist. Sadly if a foreign word is found in some text there will always be someone who will claim it to belong to the language it is written in no matter the circumstances, there have recently been many dubious examples, without attaining a wholesome view.

I repeat here my suggestion to create “code-switching” templates that complement the quotation templates for terms being attested in texts in a different language, so at least the solutions are more manifold. This is what I’d do: Since we have an English entry for “APP” “common in China” we just put the Chinese quotes there but as collapsible “code-switching ▲” instead of “quotations ▲”. Then you shan’t give a bugger whether it is Chinese, since the pronunciation is as Wyang has demonstrated random anyhow (so no content for which a Chinese section is needed), or the pronunciation in code-switching is regularly ambiguous, there aren’t standards on how to pronounce something when it is yet in that limbo. While the past is hard to fix, a new format can be a resort that will be apt to catch the quarrelsome dubious cases, so one can appease more sides but still help in an inclusionist sense – the classification can be left out but the content still be there. Fay Freak (talk) 04:03, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed answer. Is there a possibility that the Chinese have their own pronunciation norms of Latin letters developed from but parallel to that of English, resulting in for example German /tseː/ :: English /siː/ :: Mandarin /seɪ̯/ ~ /ɕi/ ~ … for C? Personally I would use /siː/ in an English context, but /seɪ̯/ in a Chinese context, so that in the sentence 「CD機的英文是『CD player』」 the first “CD” concatenates the Chinese letter names but the second uses English code mixing. Similarly, in 「點擊『Add JARs…』添加jar包」 the “jar包” is pronounced as Mandarin jiàbāo, but “Add JARs” uses code mixing. Also, in Chinese mode, the tone of “CD” in “CD機” and “這是一張CD” is the same, but in English mode, the tone of “CD” in “CD player” and “This is a CD.” is different due to different stressing. --Dine2016 (talk) 04:34, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

The question of code switching is an interesting one, née, fiancé and resumé were all French used in English until they were English, and there is no fixed point in time at which that happened. In the same way as the subject term, they contained characters which are not part of the adopting language. I don't know whether APP has entered Chinese enough to consider it Chinese, but that point is often very hard to discern, so absolutist arguments are not reasonable.

Beyond the subject at hand, I have not been impressed by the way Wyang has handled this, this is a collaborative project and reversions without communication are not helpful, nor are blunt dismissals of the opinions of others. - TheDaveRoss 20:46, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I will first give a caveat that I am by no means a native speaker in the strict sense; I'm just a heritage speaker of Cantonese with a stronger command of Cantonese than your average heritage speaker (maybe near-native in some domains, but not quite when it comes to technical things). Also, Mandarin is definitely not my native language, so I can only speak to this issue with my knowledge as a near-native heritage speaker of (Hong Kong) Cantonese and my experiences as an advanced learner of Mandarin (leaning towards southern China and Taiwan).

I have already noted my observations on how APP is used in Taiwan and Hong Kong above. When it's read as A-P-P, I tend to think it's an innovation in Chinese and would regard it as a possible step towards nativization into Chinese. As a descriptivist, I would not want to label this as "bastardisation" as Wyang has done on several occasions.

Another point to consider is that even Chinese speakers with limited knowledge of English know and use this word. I remember that while I was visiting Guangdong on a guided tour last summer, the tour guide (who seemed to demonstrate a poor command of English but spoke Cantonese and Mandarin) used the word A-P-P (if I remember correctly, in the context of Cantonese, and nothing else was English). Its pervasiveness - as seen in its clearly widespread use - can attest to it being more than a nonce borrowing from English.

Phonologically, the realization of the tones seems to be unstable, but variation is bound to occur on recent innovations. On the details of these realizations, I'm not sure if my judgment of the tones would agree with Wyang; as a Cantonese speaker, I can definitely tell a mid-level tone (tone 3) from a high-level tone (tone 1), but I don't hear A-P-P read as a mid-level tone in any of the videos listed. I would very much like to know how the tones were determined. Another aspect of phonology to consider is that A-P-P is more phonotactically agreeable to Mandarin speakers (idea from a few of the responses to this Zhihu question on the word).

While I'm not necessarily putting all my eggs in one basket, I'd say I'm leaning towards keeping the Chinese entry given all the evidence. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

There is no such thing as 'Chinese' and there is no such thing as 'English'- there is only the different sets of commonly-used vocabulary used by people in different places and the artificial and highly political labels we put on them. In the minds of the vast majority of 'Chinese speakers' 'APP' (A-P-P) has got to be an English phrase, because all legitimate Chinese words can be written in Chinese characters.

I remember when I first encountered the term 'PPT' in Jiangsu province in 2013- the Chinese citizens who were my teachers were speaking English to the class and used the term 'PPT' (P-P-T) in English and assumed I knew what they were saying. Only later did I realize they were referring to a 'powerpoint' slide.

In my above posts, I used the 'authoritative' Mainland China dictionaries of Mandarin to show that 'Wi-Fi' is now used commonly in Chinese, but my edits were rejected by the community. I was told that although the most 'authoritative' Mainland China dictionaries include an entry for 'Wi-Fi', those entries were added for the conveience of elderly Chinese people and just because it appeared in a Chinese dictionary and is used widely by Chinese speakers in both oral and written Chinese settings, did not mean that it was really Chinese.

The word presentation is used by Chinese speakers every day. I tried to add something about that fact a few months back. I once asked my Chinese-native Chinese language teacher how to translate the word 'presentation' into Chinese, and she said she didn't know what a good Chinese translation would be. We went through several alternatives with no solution. She was a native Chinese speaker and a teacher.

What is a real Chinese word? The very concept of 'Chinese language' is political, is vague, is cultural. Who gets to decide these things? Are you going to use Western philosophical concepts about language to impose the word 'APP' on "Chinese" to the exclusion of the perspective of the millions who are using these words?

I think we should recognize that this can definitely be an emotional issue for Chinese speakers and find a way to tread lightly while being maximally informative to the readers of Wiktionary. I added usages notes on the APP page to attempt to help us find a way to do that. Is presentation Chinese? Yeah, if we were to use the standards used to add new loan words to English, presentation is definitely a new Chinese word. But we are not adding loan words to the English language- we are adding loan words to Chinese. There are different standards and feelings about what counts and what doesn't. It is natural and normal for people to have strong opinions on the issues. I think that Wyang's actions are laudable and valiant if viewed from a certain perspective. Do not violently impose Western notions of descriptivism on Chinese and totally ignore people's feelings. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:55, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Friendly reminder that "violence" is me punching you in the face, and not somebody expressing opinions on a dictionary. Equinox ◑ 11:07, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

By the way, I think the existing Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese words with Latin letters, such as pì-sèi jī of PC機, should be temporarily removed as they are inaccurate. Once {{zh-pron}} is extended to support the format, we can present them as something like “PC jī”. Or we can do our own research and present them like man#Chinese. --Dine2016 (talk) 13:27, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

@Tooironic, Wyang, Justinrleung, Suzukaze-c, Dokurrat, Dine2016, Geographyinitiative, Mx. Granger I think we need to find a better way to deal with entries listed in Category:Chinese terms written in foreign scripts and other 外來語／外来语 (wàiláiyǔ) that has retained its original script. I noticed that English snowclones such as "X is the new Y", "have X, will travel" are listed in a separate appendix. What are your thoughts on doing something similar for Chinese entries? We get to retain the etymology, pronunciation, etc. Perhaps {{zh-see}} can be used to redirect man#Chinese to something like Appendix:Chinese terms written in foreign scripts/man. KevinUp (talk) 04:14, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I support the idea, though I would rather like it to be Appendix:Foreign words used in Chinese, as some don't consider app Chinese. On the other hand, this doesn't address partially-Latin words like PC機／PC机 (pì-sèi jī) and initialisms within Chinese like MM (měiméi). --Dine2016 (talk) 04:27, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I think partially Latin words can be included as well. The idea is to have a separate namespace for 外來語／外来语 (wàiláiyǔ) that still retains part of its original script. This usually occurs for 學術名詞／学术名词 (xuéshù míngcí) such as δ鍵／δ键 (dé'ěrtǎ-jiàn)

I don't see the benefit to putting loanwords or Latin-script words in an appendix. Whatever we do, we should make sure that a reader who searches for a word like AA, C位, APP, or man is able to find the information about how the word is used in Chinese. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:14, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

• I am flattered to be pinged but I'm afraid I have very little to add to this debate. I respect every one of you who has contributed and I hope we can find a way to resolve this issue once and for all. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:54, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

pronunciation variation as an argument against APP#Chinese

what about 十卜#Pronunciation? "sap6 bok1, sap6 pot1, sap6 pok1, sap6 buk1" —Suzukaze-c (talk) 06:52, 20 July 2020 (UTC)